Davidsmeyer busy on House floor

Jacksonville State Representative CD Davidsmeyer had a busy role in the General Assembly this past week.

Davidsmeyer passed legislation out of committee this week that would give Illinois Schools for the Deaf and Visual Impaired a better chance of attracting qualified teachers.

Davidsmeyer explains the legislation.

“They are competing for specialty teachers with other schools for the Deaf and Visually Impaired in other states. They have one hindrance that other states don’t and that is CMS,” says Davidsmeyer.

“Here they have to got through the testing process through CMS to get hired. This bill would allow them, until January 1st, 2017, to do a pilot program to make sure this will work. When they find good teachers they can actually hire them and retain them.”

The measure now moves to the full House for their consideration.

In other action, House Bill 695 was debated on the House floor last Friday. The bill called for voters to approve local tax hikes, but Democratic sponsors couldn’t guarantee that property tax bills wouldn’t go up if the amendment was approved.

Davidsmeyer shared his feelings on the actions surrounding the bill.

“To talk and pretend like there were not games played last week is absolutely ridiculous. There were political mailers that were sent out and postmarked Saturday morning after a Friday vote,” says Davidsmeyer.

“That means that those were printed before they had even called the vote on the board. You can’t tell me you weren’t playing political games. We need to talk about the budget for the state of Illinois. We have a lot of problems here. I’ll join you guys and come to a compromise, but quit playing games.”

The amendment was adopted on a vote of 37 yes, 23 no and 38 present. The 38 present votes were all from Republican members protesting the sham bill.

The bill now sits on a second reading with no indication from the sponsor if it will be run or not.